


Going To and Fro in The Earth

by Viboresque



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21740092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viboresque/pseuds/Viboresque
Summary: In which an angel and a serpent attempt to do their jobs whilst the Bible doesn't mention them.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 17





	1. Chava

In the beginning, but not in the very beginning, Life-Giver was at her wit’s end. Man was out toiling with the sweat of his brow. Life-Giver was here, also toiling, also tending the fire, also weaving together hides, and also looking after Begotten.

He was fed, he was clean, he was warm. He was also shrieking.

There were a great many things they did not understand in those days but, here and now, for her, the chief among these was why he was shrieking and why he had been shrieking since the sun had risen and Man had left.

She was at her wit’s end and she was attempting to sob as quietly as possible into her hides, so as to not give Begotten more of a reason to cry.

The ground rumbled, though.

Suddenly, a new shadow was thrown onto the cave wall against which they’d built their refuge and a sound that betrayed a sliding sort of motion filled the air.

Life-Giver stood completely motionless but for the desperate pounding of her heart. Her throat threatened to close, her blood ran cold, and both she and the baby barely dared to breathe as the new guest came to rest before the fire.

At last, in a strangled, fearful whisper, Life-Giver broke the silence.

“Enemy mine?”

The enemy, as she called it, moved its head to regard her. It had been staring at Begotten, she hadn’t failed to notice. A moment passed as it turned its attention away from the baby and instead fixed it squarely on her. It twisted its head to the side a fraction, along with the top fifth of its body, roughly.

“Are we, though? Enemies? I mean, I know She said you and I weren’t going to get on anymore what with the whole crushing-my-head-into-the-dust mandate, but enemies seemssss...”

“She said—“

The serpent popped its head up slightly from the massive coil it had arranged itself into. The gesture seemed like an attempt to shrug its shoulders, if it had had any.

“Well, She’s said a lot that hasn’t come to pass, hasn’t She? If I bit your heel, you’d have every right to grind my head into the dust, as far as I’m concerned. But I won’t, and I doubt you will. Still doesn’t seem to qualify us as enemies per se.”

Life-Giver understood only some of what the serpent said but, for the second time in her life, couldn’t find herself disagreeing with its reasoning.

“Your young?” asked the serpent.

She sensed it knew the answer already. She wouldn’t make herself endure Begotten if he weren’t her young. Anyone could see that, and the serpent was clever, and she was rather clever, too, now that she could hear herself think again.

“Did it hurt?” The serpent asked.

“More than anything could hurt. Yes, that part is true. It still hurts, sometimes.”

“I know how that goes,” the serpent muttered as it did something curious with its eyes, shifting them quickly.

At this, the child, who had been silent in awe of the visitor, gurgled and as he gurgled, he watched the serpent expectantly, as if hoping it would shift its eyes again. When the serpent stared but otherwise failed to amuse, he reached a chubby hand out to touch it.

“No,” Life-Giver said, though it was not clear to whom she spoke.

The serpent shifted his eyes towards her again but moved not a muscle towards the baby other than to focus its gaze upon him for a better look, in a reptilian version of a squint.

Once again, imperious Begotten stretched an arm out for the serpent, believing that if he hadn’t been obeyed, it was surely because he hadn’t been understood.

When again, all in attendance failed to move, Begotten felt the betrayal of his subjects keenly and with a horrid wail, began to exact a terrible vengeance worse than before.

“No, no, no,” said Life-Giver as she ran to pick him up.

“Wait. Wait just a minute,” the serpent said which she interpreted as an order, perhaps even a threat.

Slowly, the serpent uncoiled and straightened some section of its spine upwards and upwards as much as the serpent could. The motion left it in a menacing position, towering over the child and the woman as though it meant to strike.

Both the child and the woman stared up with impossibly wide eyes, frozen once again, uncomprehending and terrified. The serpent for its part made a sibilant noise that might have been a sigh, and then all at once let itself flop gracelessly down onto its own coils.

The baby’s breath hitched. Then, a shriek pierced the air, this time a shriek of delight.

The woman herself breathed an obvious sigh of relief as the serpent prepared to repeat the motion.

“Why have you come?” She interrupted. “I thought you had surely come to slay the child.”

“Slay him? Why would anyone want to slay him?”

The woman shook her head. Yes, of course, she seemed to say. She had no idea why anyone would contemplate slaying him.

“Ah. Of course. No, I came to see him. Do you mind if I...?”

No sooner had permission been indicated, the serpent executed a complicated set of maneuvers that first uncoiled it, straightened it, slid it forward, and then recoiled it. In this new position, thick, loosely wound muscle formed a sort of cradle. In the center of the cradle lay the child, absolutely fascinated with the turn of events.

“Why?”

“There’s never been anything like him on Earth. And, there’ll never be anything exactly like him again. He’s...a miracle? After a fashion?”

It sounded sincere. But, then again, it lied, didn’t it?

Had she not listened to it the first time, she thought, perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt. Perhaps her labor would have been like Man described her birth, a painless miracle that happened to him as he slept. Perhaps she’d have had all the animals in the Garden to sing to Begotten and to cradle him as she and Adam slept or ate or did whatever they needed to do. Why, in those days, there wouldn’t have been anything needful to do in the first place. In those days, they had just been.

If she left now, she could run to the riverbank and possibly gather some roots. And, what smelled better than stewed roots when Man came home, perhaps with a rabbit to add?

Perhaps, then, it hadn’t lied. They lived when She had said they would surely die. But they were as gods when Adam established their own minuscule garden patch and kept the things in it alive and when she used his sword to start a fire and kept it stoked. They knew the Evils of cold rain, sore work, and hunger, but they also knew now the sublime Goods of food when their stomachs growled, sleep after a hard day, and the triumph of waking up to see their flimsy roof still standing after the rains. After all, it was precisely because Begotten was so terrible awake that he was so lovely when he learned to smile in his sleep.

And, so long as it was—inspecting the baby while the baby inspected it?—keeping Begotten occupied, at any rate...

“‘Creeping-thing? ‘Crawling-thing’ as Man called you. Crawling-thing?” the woman started to say, cautiously.

“What, not ‘enemy mine’ anymore?” The serpent said with what might have been a laugh. “I’ll be here. I won’t let Man see me either. Go on, Chava.”

—————————-

“Hang on there, hang on. Coming through. Pardon me. Just before you finish. It’ll only take a second,” the serpent said politely as it plunged over the crack in the wall currently undergoing repairs.

“I’m fairly sure you’re not meant to be in there!”

“A blink of an eye, you’ll see.”

“I’m actually certain none of us...Er...oh, dear.”

To this day, the serpent maintains it went directly to where the Tigris and the Euphrates met, plucked the flower it needed, and immediately returned, just as it said it would.

On the other hand, the angel will hold that as he fretted, and waited, and every so often discretely checked to make sure no one above was observing his progress, an eternity passed.

“Ah, Crawley. Thank Heaven. I was beginning to worry I’d have to board you—what is that? Where are you going with that?” The angel called uselessly as the serpent reappeared with a red flower in its mouth, gliding over the crack and away, quick as lightning, cutting through sand like ships would cut through water, eventually.  
———————-

“Oh, hullo. What are you doing out here all alone?”

“What was that all about?” One asked the other around a fire, far enough away that they could escape detection and yet still see the orange glow that emanated from the little shelter.

“It’s my job, isn’t it, angel? If they get used to me, they’ll trust me. If they trust me, they’ll listen to me. Doing my job, that’s all.”

“Yes, of course, but I meant about the flower.”

“Well...I suppose if she can put him to sleep, then she has more free time. You know what they say, don’t you? Idle hands are—“

“Ah, I see.”

“Did you finish earlier? Where’s your new post going to be, then?”

“Beg pardon?”

“You can’t very well guard the Gate if you haven’t got a sword or a gate. Where are they moving you to?”

“Oh, they haven’t said. I’m sure they will eventually. Part of the—“

“Right. Of course.”

“Of course. It couldn’t hurt to keep an eye on them. Until further notice, of course.”

“Meh. Don’t suppose it could hurt. You should drop by. She’s getting very creative with that rabbit, you know.”


	2. Kana

The angel watched and worried his fingertips together nervously. Some distance off, the tiller had dropped his crude plow and had been struck still. He stood unnaturally motionless and unnaturally tense, looking up at the sky, almost as though he were having what would eventually become known as a seizure.

Beside the angel, the serpent slipped up and coiled itself, rearing its head up until they stood at the same height.

“What’s She doing down there?” the serpent asked sliding past the angel’s foot.

”Oh, hello, you. Can’t you hear Her?”

“Not since the Garden. These days, only when She wants me to, I expect.”

“Ah. I see. Well, he was plowing and then She called him and now, I imagine She’s telling him to cheer up,” the angel said.

“She’s telling him to cheer up? But, how? She told him only yesterday She didn’t like his...roast wheat...or whatever it is.”

“Baked wheat,” the angel corrected as he stood on his tiptoes. Of course, standing on his tiptoes offered no greater visibility of the situation, but it was more an expression of a nervous desire to get closer while still maintaining a respectful distance.

“Oh, I don’t know why She says there’s a difference,” the angel said as he worried his hands together. “I think the lamb and the wheat both smell wonderful, to a point but, well, what do I know?”

“ _What?_ What does that matter? Is She _eating_ it?!”

“No! No, of course She isn’t! And, I’m sure She does like it. She just...happens to like Hebel’s more. I’m not sure how She decides these things, it’s just—“

“Don’t,” the serpent said sharply. “Their mother—their real mother—knows not to tell one that he’s done something better than the other one. It’s a sure way to sow the seeds of an argument if there ever was one and I should know, shouldn’t I?”

“Aha!” The angel said, turning to accuse the accuser. “So you’re the one who told him to—“

“Oh, no, don’t look at me!” The serpent answered, literally taken aback by the idea. “I only pop in occasionally. I haven’t told him to do anything. He spends all day tilling the earth just like She told them to and he assumed that that’s what he should offer Her.”

“Doesn’t seem too unreasonable an assumption, if you ask me,” the serpent ended with a mutter.

“Well, they don’t ask us, do they? That’s the trouble.”

“Is it trouble?” The serpent asked, suddenly curious. “That they don’t ask us?”

“No, no, it isn’t. It’s as it should be. I suppose. There, see?” The tiller had been released from whatever held him fixated on the sky. Instead, he was now on the ground, panting and retching.

“All done! No worse for the wear!” The angel concluded with a short-lived smile and false brightness. The serpent’s mouth fell a little open in a gesture very uncharacteristic of serpents but very characteristic of someone shocked at how ‘no worse for the wear’ could pass for an apt description at the moment.

“Well, there’s no point in arguing or feeling glum about it now. What’s done is done. He simply has to...try something different, I expect. It’s...well...in—, er, fruitless to try to understand why.”

“Fruitless is right, angel,” the serpent said as it launched itself forward and slid off towards the open field.

————————

“I don’t know, Crawly-thing,” the tiller said, rolling the serpent a grape. “All he does is watch the sheep do what the sheep do, anyway. We have to break the clods and plant the seeds and water the earth and then harvest the grain. We have to put in work, and I thought that’s what She wanted! I thought She’d be pleased.”

“That I understand,” the serpent said, hissing and striking at the grape as if it were a mouse before swallowing it down. “Supposing you asked him to let you borrow a lamb? Well, borrowing isn’t the right word. Borrowing implies you’re going to give it back. You could ask him for a lamb. Maybe swap him something?”

“Not bloody likely,” the boy, now almost a man, said, drawing his knees up to himself. “There’s no talking to him anymore. He thinks he’s Her favorite now. They all do. They think that makes him better than me.”

The serpent accepted another grape and waggled its head up and down in a nod of sorts. It might have raised an eyebrow in sympathy if it had had eyebrows.

————————

The angel was knelt by where Hebel lay. He had been too late to the scene, though it hadn’t stopped him from grabbing hold of the boy’s wrist in an attempt to preserve whatever chance at life he might have still had. Nothing had helped, nothing had been healed, and by the third time, the angel had begun to think that much of it had been preordained without his knowledge, and so he’d eventually relented.

The ground cracked open a few paces away from him, releasing the serpent who immediately coasted forward towards the opposite side of the boy, now a body.

“What happened? Where is he?”

“He’s gone. You’ve missed him.”

“Gone?” The serpent repeated, careful to neither touch the dead boy nor the sword that lay beside him. “Gone where? She’s killed him?”

“She doesn’t kill people. She metes out divine justice,” the angel corrected, tiredly. “And in this case, She’s seen fit to show mercy. He’ll be exiled, he’ll be unable to grow things anymore, but She’s expressly forbidding anyone from hurting him. So, all things considered—“

“All things considered, She ought to show mercy!” The serpent interrupted ferociously. “The entire thing could have been avoided had the Almighty not decided to start an argument without explaining—“

“This wasn’t you, then? Your people, at least?”

“No!” The serpent said, sounding more than a little venomous. “Not at all! That wouldn’t have been very clever of us, would it? There are significantly fewer people to tempt now!"

“I suppose so. And I suppose if it wasn’t your lot, then, She must have—“

“Must have caused a rift knowing that this would happen so Chava would feel even worse about all the Garden business? Yes, I could definitely see that.”

“Heavens, no! I wasn’t going to speculate at all. I was going to say this must be for the greater good, somehow. Perhaps he’ll be remorseful, use this learn to the consequences of evil. Spread the word that they should just do as they’re told going forward. Something like that.”

The serpent blinked, apparently not accepting this answer but choosing not to pursue it.

“If anything—if it wasn’t explicitly Her will, I mean—then...” the angel continued, “Then, I can’t help but feel responsible myself. If I hadn’t given his father the sword—“

“Oh, no,” the serpent answered, softening, “No, no, angel. It isn’t like that. His father gave Hebel that sword to defend the flock. Kana’s just always been bigger and stronger. I'm sure they argued, like they always do. Then, they tried to wrestle it out, like the always do. And, from there..." the serpent trailed off, unable to hide the bittersweet hint of nostalgia and regret that crept into its voice. After a moment's pause and a blink, it shook its head, seemingly shaking off the feeling before it grew too undeniable. "They’d been using it exactly as you hoped they would. You couldn’t have known.”

“You think so? Really?”

“Really.” The serpent said definitively.

“Though now’s your chance,” It continued, pointing towards the sword with the tip of its tail and edging away from it even further. “If you were nervous about the humans having it, there it is.”

The angel swallowed, reassured, but made no move towards it.

“I ought to follow him,” the serpent said lightly, staring off into the distance as though he might still be able to make it the exile’s retreating outline. The angel, though, remained focused on the sword. “See where he lands and all that.”

For a moment, the serpent seemed to wait for a goodbye. But the angel seemed preoccupied and only gave it the most cursory nod in farewell.

“Right,” said the serpent, with an inexplicable hint of disappointment, before leaping up and nosediving down into the yielding ground which opened to let it down and away.

—————-

Some time later, as the angel still knelt, he had finally summoned the courage to reach a hand towards the hilt of the sword where it lay.

Before his hand could entirely curl around the sword, however, thunder crackled and lightning struck the ground before him.

“It is mine,” the apparition that manifested before him said scornfully, once it had gotten its bearings enough to speak. “Away.”

The angel drew his hand back at the lightning bolt but did not immediately obey.

“I think you’ll find otherwise, Madam. Unless, of course, you’ve been sent from upstairs to collect it, in which case, I completely—“

“I am sent from nowhere. I am mine unto myself.”

“I see...well, then, in that case, I’ll just get my things and be on my way, then,” the angel answered, preparing to reach for it once again.

“You may leave. The sword stays.”

“I don’t think it’s for you to say, exactly. Whoever it is that you are. Who did you say you were?”

“Not who. What. I am a Being. I am a Fact. I was there in Heaven for the schism of your race and now, with the schism of theirs, I have been allowed the Earth as well,” she said, sounding very proud of herself.

“Well, welcome, I suppose,” the angel said, the edge in his voice almost too apparent to pass for politeness. “But, that doesn’t change the fact that—”

“You have no claim to it. You would let it languish in disuse,” she mocked. Above the beginnings of renewed protest from the angel, she continued. “It was forged for kindred to turn onto kindred. You wielded it once and wielded it well. But, then, you let it change hands. Peaceably,” she finished with evident distaste for the word.

At that moment, if any uncertainty remained about ever having given the sword away, the angel’s doubts dissipated entirely in the face of being questioned about it. As it turned out, he concluded somewhat petulantly, he had been right to give it away and, furthermore, didn’t even want it anymore, anyway.

Seeing the strange mix of defiance and obedience coalesce begins the angel’s eyes, the Being smirked coldly and bent down to reach for the hilt.

“The spoils of war are of War,” she said before the air sizzled again and it was gone, sword and all.

The angel, for his part, decided, then and there, that he did not and, in fact, had apparently never liked War.


	3. Noah

“Crawley?” 

“Hey, hey! Azira...nnggghh...Aziraffff...” said the serpent, or, the fallen angel formerly known as the serpent, who was not at the moment a serpent, and who was considering a more permanent shift away from serpenthood, in general. At least, he tried to say as much before dissolving into hysterical cackles. 

“What in Heaven’s name are you...Crawley, what are you doing?”

“Drinking! Drinking.....” the not-serpent wrinkled his eyebrows together before producing the word he was looking for. “Wine! They’re drinking wine now. Oh, it’s brilliant. And, honestly, it’s not a moment too soon. You...You should try it!”

“Did you convince him to do this? To drink?” The angel asked, staring aghast at the entire scene, but particularly at the old, impossibly old man, covered in vomit and snoring on the cavern floor, a few feet behind Crawley. 

Nearer to the entrance of the cavern and against a wall, Crawley half-leaned and half-lay, limbs all askew and robe disheveled. He tucked his elbows underneath himself to sit up somewhat and to face the angel. As best as anybody could have told, his eyes seemed unfocused though his expression was one of confusion, outrage, and revulsion. 

“And,” the angel continued, ignoring Crawley entirely, “Why is he...so....so...”

“What? Why is he so what? Spit it out.” 

“So.... _naked!_ " 

At that, Crawley tossed a glance behind himself, faltering in his balance somewhat as he did so. Confirming the state of things for himself, he then returned his gaze to the angel, more disgusted than even before.

“Oh, no, _that_ you won’t accuse me of doing, angel. He got himself exactly how he is all on his own. He’s been doing this for weeks. All I did was follow him here and happen upon this marvelous, miraculous—“

“But...how?”

“How? I don’t know how...I think he must have let some jars sit out too long and a year or so later, here we—“

“Crawley!” The angel said in a tone that brooked no further argument. “I don’t mean that! I mean...he’s supposed to be Her local favorite. She’s brought him through the storm. We did the rainbow and everything. How is he so base now?” The angel asked, turning his nose up just a fraction at the scene before him. 

“You did the rainbow?” Crawley repeated in a cross between genuine repetition for understanding and disingenuous repetition for the sake of mockery. Blinking and realizing that, of course, the angel’s statement was utterly sincere, Crawley tossed his head back and laughed. “Oh, Heaven. You really don’t see it, do you? You really don’t.” 

“See what?” The angel asked, quite annoyed and quite on the verge of an impressive diatribe. “All I see is that you’ve somehow perverted a good man. A family man. And that, though, I obviously shouldn’t be surprised...you’ve certainly managed to take the one decent—“

“Decent?” Crawley asked, hissing the word through his teeth. Although he’d watched the angel’s tirade with a sort of lazy amusement, at that last bit, he clambered up to sit and miracled an entirely new wineskin into his hand. 

“Decent. Why, you must not have been there. You must not have seen it actually happen. But, you should have. At least our lot sticks around for what we do. That should be a rule.” 

Crawley took a swig and uncurled an unsteady finger from the wineskin to point it forward in accusation. “You should have heard the screaming and the crying, all that wailing and gnashing of teeth that She likes so much. You should have heard them trying to claw their way in once it covered people’s ankles. There are scratches on the wood, you know. Once the water died down, you could see them. You should have heard all the apologies and promises to be different and last-minute confessions. To him. To Her. To anyone.” 

The angel blinked as the lecture he was improvising evaporated but Crawley, not content to let it go, was already off and away on his own lecture.

“The worst were the kids. By far. And I told you, didn’t I? I told you as the animals all went marching in, two-by-two and seven-by-seven and however else. I told you. The worst of it was everyone lifting their children onto their shoulders and up to the boat. ‘Fine. Don’t take me,’ they said,” Crawley quoted, twisting his face to spit every syllable they said. “‘But for pity’s sake, please. Take my child. Take my Atarah, take my Eliezer. Take them.”

“ _We_ heard it. Even from down there, we heard them.”

Crawley paused for another drink. Bitterly pleased that, perhaps for the first time, there was no mention of a plan ineffable or otherwise, he continued. 

“And, do you know, angel? That when all those people were crying, when all those people were scratching, and pounding and bellowing at the door? There wasn’t any point. I mean, less of a point than there usually is, of course.”

He chuckled utterly mirthlessly and then, to replace the finger that he’d pointed, he stretched out a hand and held up his palm towards the angel to demonstrate.

“She’d told him to make the door too heavy. Because She knew. She knew that She’d have to. That’s the point of him, isn’t it? Last Good Man In The Area? And he was just supposed to hold his own loved ones close while everyone else’s shrieked outside? With Her hand—Her own great, mighty, inscrutable, ineffable hand—She shut the door on them Herself. He couldn’t close it, so he couldn’t open it. He just had to sit in the dark and listen to them. And then? Silence. Just the rain. And Her, moving quietly over the waters. Just like in the beginning. Just according to plan.” 

Watching the angel as he stared forward, evidently speechless as the weight of the information fell on him, Crawley pursed his lips and snapped his fingers. Immediately the wineskin in his hand swelled to fullness as his eyes took on their usual sharpness.

“If I had to guess, I think that might have something to do with why he’s like this,” he concluded, tugging his robe straight. “I would guess that he doesn’t feel particularly _decent.”_

“We didn’t hear. I didn’t hear,” the angel ventured at last. “She just told us that She was doing it and then...after it was done...and the...” ‘Rainbow’ felt unutterably stupid to say right then. Perhaps, ever again, really. “Well, She said She wouldn’t do it again. Or, not with the water, anyway. Whatever She’s planning, it won’t be that way next time, it’ll be...I don’t know. I don’t know how it’ll be. I only know that we can’t know and that we couldn’t do much about it, besides.” 

Crawley arched an eyebrow in wry agreement. Silence fell again, this time in the cavern, and this time, only interrupted by the drunken moans of an old man having an awful nightmare.

After a long while, the angel tilted his head gently from side to side in consideration of something unspoken and then swallowed thickly.

“Does it take a lot?” He asked at last.

“Yes, actually. I keep having to put it back just to start over again.”

“Then...well, evidently, a bit wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, you don’t just have a little and then immediately...”

“Don’t think so, no.”

The angel discretely side-eyed to the left, then side-eyed to the right, casting about for any would-be witnesses. Crawley, in turn, eyed the angel with a renewed interest that he hadn’t felt in anything since the rains had started. 

“Alright, then, just a nip. Come on.”


End file.
